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Mar 3rd 2016

This Presidential Campaign

Can I be pastoral for a moment?

I’ve been watching this presidential campaign unfold and I have been, at turns, amused, mystified, and mortified by the regularity with which folks (on both sides of the aisle and representing all candidates) continually reference Candidates’ A, B, C, X, Y, Z decisions, actions, or inactions of 20, 30, 40, 1001 years ago … and use that as a factor in whether they will vote for that candidate today.

This is all problematic because it implies that people can’t grow, change, think differently, or do better. And it holds people to one place in time and one moment in their lives.

Sure I’d like to be aware of what their past decisions were. But it’s more important to me to know what they think NOW. And if they made bad decisions, I’d like to know that they recognize this, that they’ve apologized, and that they are ready to make amends. Frankly, I’m not interested in ANYBODY, candidate or friend, who has not experienced any change or growth in their lifetime. They are stagnant. And nothing of value grows in stagnant water.

Now for the pastoral moment. May I ask about the decisions YOU made 10, 20, 30, 1001 years ago? Shall I judge you and base our friendship on those decisions alone — and give no weight to your evolution, to who you are TODAY and what you think TODAY?

And what if God did that? What if God held us to who we were and what we thought and what we did before we came to know and love Him. How would you like that? Where would we be?

I really loved this message. I believe part of what makes a leader great is not their personal successes, but how they've helped someone else excel in life. Even for myself one of my quotes is "success is measured by what you've helped someone else accomplish". I also agree it's crucial to share "war stories"; it helps to know what someone has been through and can share lessons learned.